Holy Saturday or Gospel Saturday, the 'day of the
entombed Christ', is the Lord's day of rest, for on that day Christ's body lay
in His tomb. We recall the Apostle's Creed, which says "He descended unto the
dead." It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and
death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the
World. This day between Good Friday and Easter Day makes present to us the end
of one world and the complete newness of the era of salvation inaugurated by the
Resurrection of Christ.

A small act of mercy on the part of Joseph of Arimathea meant that Jesus' limp
and lifeless body would not be thrown into a pit of a grave, but laid carefully
in a rock-hewn garden tomb. Joseph was probably a man with significant
conflicts. Wealthy, a prominent member of the Jewish council, he represented the
very establishment that was committed to Jesus' demise. Yet he believed in
Jesus, secretly. To believe in Jesus does put one on the spot. Being a committed
disciple of Jesus always upsets the status quo. ...

Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is
that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me
rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him
the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must
now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of
Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness. ...

It seemed whenever I thought of Easter, I thought only of Easter Sunday - the
celebration of resurrected life - or Good Friday - the death Christ suffered on
the cross. I never thought as pastor and author Pete Wilson points out in Plan
B, of the Saturday In-Between:

"Saturday… It seems like a day when nothing is happening. It's a day of
questioning, doubting, wondering and definitely waiting…helplessness or
hopelessness.

"The sorrows of death surrounded me, the sorrows of hell encompassed me"
(Psalm 17:5). It is the voice of all the just of ages past who, like the holy
prophet Job, endured the loss of things dear to them, suffered every manner of
affliction, and found themselves surrounded on all side by - the psalmist says
it - "the sorrows of death" and "the sorrows of hell". There are hundreds of
thousands of people who are feeling this very thing today. There may be people
very close to us and dear to our hearts, loved ones who are enduring the
relentless assault of the sorrows of death, the sorrows of hell; sensitive souls
scorched by what they experience as the brutality of everyday life. ...

The women saw how His body was laid; and they prepared spices and ointments; and
rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.Luke 23:55-56

Holy Saturday or Gospel Saturday (in Latin, Sabbatum Sanctum), the 'day of the
entombed Christ', is the Lord's day of rest, for on that day Christ's body lay
in His tomb. We recall the Apostle's Creed, which says "He descended unto the
dead." It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and
death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the
World. This day between Good Friday and Easter Day makes present to us the end
of one world and the complete newness of the era of salvation inaugurated by the
Resurrection of Christ.

Waiting For God

by Mel Lawrenz, The Brook Network

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a
disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's
permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the
man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh
and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus' body, the two of them
wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with
Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a
garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.
Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they
laid Jesus there. (John 19:38-42)

A small act of mercy on the part of Joseph of Arimathea meant that Jesus' limp
and lifeless body would not be thrown into a pit of a grave, but laid carefully
in a rock-hewn garden tomb. Joseph was probably a man with significant
conflicts. Wealthy, a prominent member of the Jewish council, he represented the
very establishment that was committed to Jesus' demise. Yet he believed in
Jesus, secretly. To believe in Jesus does put one on the spot. Being a committed
disciple of Jesus always upsets the status quo.

Nicodemus, also fearful but compelled, came to the tomb too. So there two men,
both of whose associations put them at odds with Jesus, both of whom really
wanted to believe, are the ones who respectfully wrap the body of Jesus in
cloths and seventy-five pounds of spices. Yet the only thing that can really
take away the stench of death and its empty stare is resurrection.

These and the other disciples were still stuck in that no-man's-land between
life and death. All that Jesus' followers had to hold onto were Jesus' vague
words about rising from death. Could such words be taken seriously at all? What
would they do in these days? Would they be arrested next? And so they waited
behind locked doors because there was nothing else to do.

Ponder This:

Is there some way in which you are waiting to see what will happen next? How
will you find faith in the waiting place?

Source: KNOWING HIM, An Easter Devotional

Complete and Effective Divinity

by Oswald Chambers

"If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also
shall be in the likeness of His resurrection . . ." - Romans 6:5

Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is
that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me
rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him
the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must
now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of
Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.

The idea all through the apostle Paul's writings is that after the decision to
be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of
Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God -
His complete and effective divinity - to live the life of the Son of God in human
flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the
house - He invades all of it. And once I decide that my "old man" (that is, my
heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit
invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and
to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision
about sin, it is easy to "reckon" that I am actually "dead indeed to sin,"
because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there
is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness - the holiness
of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the
holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.

Source: My Utmost for His Highest (The Golden Book of Oswald Chambers)

Ever wondered what happened between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday? Where did Jesus go?

by Peter Pilt

So I am writing this on Easter Saturday. We celebrated the death of Jesus
yesterday at our Good Friday services and on Sunday we will celebrate his
resurrection . So what happened between Friday and Sunday? Ever Wondered?

Well here is what I see in scripture happened. First a little context.

Recently I was preaching on types of Christ and I came across this scripture and
it troubled me

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the
Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
-
Matt 12:40

So Jesus said that Jonah was a type of Jesus.

Most people know the story of Jonah. He was a Minor Prophet in the Old Testament
that was told by God to go and preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. Jonah
doesn't want to and so he goes in the opposite direction on a boat. Ultimately
he is in a major storm and gets thrown overboard by the crew and is swallowed by
a whale.

Some commentators believe that Jonah actually died in the whale. Check out this
verse

To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit,
O LORD my God.-
Jonah 2:6

So after three days he got vomited up on the shore and he goes and preaches to
Nineveh and Nineveh repents.

Go forward about 600 or 700 years, Jesus says "As Jonah was in the belly of the
whale, so must I be in the belly of the whale 3 days and 3 nights."

What happened when Jesus died?

He went to the belly of the earth, but what did he do?

He died on the cross, disappeared for three days and then he comes back.

Where did He go and what did He do?

The bible doesn't say a real lot about what He did do. But it gives us some
clues that we can draw conclusions from.

31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His
soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.-
Acts 2:31

Peter is preaching and he talks about Jesus and he said that when Jesus died, his
soul wasn't left in Hades. But he was resurrected. So we know, that when Jesus
died on the cross, he went to a place called Hades.

7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's
gift. 8 Therefore He says:"When He ascended on high,He led captivity captive,And gave gifts to men." [a]

9 (Now this, "He ascended" - what does it mean but that He also first[b]
descended into the lower parts of the earth?Ephesians 4:7-9

So we know:

No 1- He went into Hades

No 2- He descended into the lower parts of the Earth.

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He
might bring us [a] to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the
Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison.-
1 Peter 3:18-19

We know Jesus was born at Christmas.
We know He died at Easter. - was dead on Easter eve?
We know that He died on the cross and went down to a place called "Hades"
We know according to Ephesians that it was down, in the lower parts of the
earth.
We know that He preached to the spirits that are in prison.
But I don't believe that you can have a second chance once you die. Thus a
problem with the idea that Jesus went down there and preached to the spirits in
prison.

I have done some research and want to bring some thoughts to you and bring some
clarity to this scripture.

In the English language, there is one word for hell and that is, hell.

In the bible there are 3 words for hell. And only one of them is hell as we
understand the term.

The first one is Sheol. Which is used only in the Old Testament.

The second one is Hades. Which is used only in the New Testament.

They are the same place. Just a different language.

Sheol and Hades is a temporary place where people go once they have departed
this life. This was pre resurrection of Jesus.

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;if I make my bed in the
sheol, you are there-
Ps 139:8

As a cloud vanishes and is gone,so he who goes down to sheol does not return.-
Job 7:9

Hades is defined in the Strong's Greek Dictionary, as the place of departed
souls.

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and
the gates of Hades will not overcome it.-
Matt 16:18

The 3rd hell is a place called Gehenna. It is the ultimate hell. It is the place
in Revelations 20 and 21 how at the end of time, when all the judgement has
happened, it actually says dead and Hades will be cast into Gehenna. Into the
lake of fire. Remember that - Hades is thrown into Gehanna.

Our concept of hell, fire and brimstone etc, that is Gehenna.

At the moment Gehenna is empty. Because the judgement of the end of time hasn't
happened yet. It is Hades that we actually deal with right now.

The bible refers to Hades as always being down. In Isaiah it says that therefore
the grave enlarges its appetite. It means that Hades can expand to fit more
people.

But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or
even look inside it.-
Rev 5:3

Hades had 2 compartments. It had a compartment where those with no faith in God
would go to after they died. And there would be tormenting. The other
compartment is a place they used to call Paradise. Where people were kept in
comfort, awaiting the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here is a scripture that
supports this idea.

19 "There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and
fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus,
full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs
which fell [a] from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his
sores. 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to
Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments
in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his
bosom.

24 "Then he cried and said, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus
that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am
tormented in this flame.Luke 16:19-24

Jesus is on the cross and there is a thief who says, "remember me when you come
into your kingdom. Jesus says "This day, you will be with me in Paradise."

39 Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, "If You are
the Christ, save Yourself and us."

40 But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, "Do you not even fear God,
seeing you are under the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong." 42
Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."

43 And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in
Paradise."-
Luke 23:39-43

He was going to the Paradise side of Hades. For a particular purpose.

What happened when He went there?

He went and collected all the righteous souls and took them to heaven. When Noah
and Abraham died, they went to Paradise. But when you and I die, the bible says
Absent from the body, but present with the Lord. When we go from this life to
the next, we go straight to Heaven. We live post resurrection.

The system changed once the resurrection of Jesus happened.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The
earth shook and the rocks split.

The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised
to life.

They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the
holy city and appeared to many people.-
Matt 27:51-53

Notice that all the saints, the people who died with a faith in God, rose from
their grave, POST JESUS' RESURRECTION.

Now, if you find yourself in Hades, you are in all sorts of trouble. It means
you have died without a faith in Jesus Christ. Those people are awaiting the
judgement that Revelation talks about.

So what about the scripture that says that Jesus went down and preached to the
spirits in prison?

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He
might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by
the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison.-
1 Peter 3:18-19

Preached = to make a declaration - according to the Greek definition of the word
that is used here.

In 1 Peter 3:18, I believe that Jesus was down there declaring stuff to the
devil.

Jesus went down there, emptied the paradise section of Hades, took those guys up
to heaven post resurrection and He started to declare some things to the devil.

He started to declare that He held the keys to death and hell.

To declare that the devil was defeated.

To declare that the Holy Ghost was coming.

That the church would rise up and the gates of Hades could not prevail against
it. It was the announcement of the beginning of the Church age - which I believe
ends pre tribulation in Revelation 4 - but that is another blog topic for
another day. There was a declaration in the Spirit Realm.

When Jesus had finished making declarations, then He said, come on Holy Spirit,
raise me from the dead.

There is a scripture in Ecclesiastes that says that "Wisdom is found in the
house of mourning." What wisdom?

1. Death is inevitable. Everyone is going to die. People think that if they
don't talk or think about death, somehow they will escape it. You cannot escape
death. It is there. You will die.

2. Jesus has provided a way of escape. Every single one of us is going to die.
He died so that you and I would be prepared for the inevitable.

3. Death can come as a surprise. I wonder how many people go, "Wow. I'm dead!"

Jesus is our escape plan. He was sent here to earth for us to escape Hades and
Gehenna so we would got to an eternity with God. We have got to think through
our salvation plan. We've got to think that death is inevitable.

Enjoy life, enjoy the ride, but be prepared for any surprises that may come your
way.

To me, my eternal salvation is too big a deal to risk waiting until I'm older.

Two hours later, I found myself sitting in front of a doctor who specialized in
treating work related injuries.

"You won't be going back to work for a while. You have RSI (Repetitive Stress
Injury). Might be carpel tunnel syndrome. We won't know yet, until you get some
therapy."

How long will I be out? I asked, thinking a day or two.

When it all was said and done, combining full and partial disability, my road to
recovery took nearly three years.

Getting Better Or Getting Worse?

When I first started physical therapy, I was very optimistic. I was determined
to heal fast. Take my meds, get my therapy, do my exercises and wear my wrist
braces.

The problem was healing isn't a linear process.

I was progressively hurting more week after week. My pain extended to my upper
arms, my shoulders, neck and even my back. Was I just falling apart?

My physical therapist Tom educated me.

You're actually getting better, even if it feels like you're getting worse.

Tom drew a swirl of concentric circles on his note pad.

He said that healing is like peeling an onion. He said that I had ignored the
fatigue initially in my muscles so well, that it caused my body to compensate in
other areas.

Pain, Tom explained, was a healthy indicator that my body was finally speaking
to me.

My path to recovery was to swirl out first - to understand exactly how far my
injury went. Tom gently pointed out that as one muscle group got better, I would
start feeling the pain in other areas that had been masked on top of the other.

I have found myself in the same condition for many Easters.

I wanted so badly to celebrate the joy of Easter Sunday resurrection, I ignored
the layers of stress and unanswered questions from my everyday life.

The Saturday In-Between

Don't get me wrong, I was filled with joy for Jesus on Easter Sunday, in praise
and thankfulness for the sacrifice and love He poured out for me on Good Friday
2000 years ago. I am always brought to tears meditating on the suffering our
Lord endured emotionally, physically and spiritually by taking up the cross.
But, I was often heart heavy waiting to taste the power of resurrection in some
difficult circumstances.

It seemed whenever I thought of Easter, I thought only of Easter Sunday - the
celebration of resurrected life - or Good Friday - the death Christ suffered on
the cross. I never thought as pastor and author Pete Wilson points out in Plan
B, of the Saturday In-Between:

"Saturday… It seems like a day when nothing is happening. It's a day of
questioning, doubting, wondering and definitely waiting…helplessness or
hopelessness.

Is it possible that Saturday is actually a day of preparation?

… Saturday was the day God was engineering a resurrection."

My One Thing

This year, I'm celebrating Easter Sunday with a lot of my story resurrected from
my "Saturday" life. Not in a way where everything has worked out. A lot of the
questions I've been asking for a very long time haven't been answered.

In fact, some of the problems I've asked God to solve haven't gotten better.
But, I have learned one thing through my time in this extended season of
waiting.

That one thing is this: Jesus' love continues to be one thing I can always say
yes to.

In lieu of answers and resolution, I had to continually make a choice. Do I let
my pain and hurt shape my faith - or do I take my faith and run into the arms of
Jesus?

This has been my greatest joy: I have been able to choose love - because Love
chose me.

I've been able to find when I couldn't possibly wait any longer in dissonance
and lack of closure - the love of Jesus continues to heal me, carry me and
attract me to Him. I can continue choosing to love God, love others, and pour
myself out, even in weakness and imperfection.

All because Jesus loves me. Because of the cross.

I had given up hope of ever getting better.
Then I got up one day, not feeling any pain. It left me, just as it came.
Suddenly.

It took me many years to get to that one morning. I will always remember who got
me through it.

It wasn't hope in recovery. It was hope in Jesus.

I don't know how long our Saturdays will last, friends.
But one thing I do know, Jesus has walked that Saturday into eternity for us.
His love will never leave us and His love will get us through to our Easter
Sundays.
He loves us all the way.

"The God of all grace,
who called you to his eternal glory in Christ
- after you have suffered a little while -
will himself restore you
and make you strong, firm and steadfast."
- 1 Peter 5:10

How is Jesus speaking to you this Easter?

Pull up a chair. I'm wishing you a Happy Easter,
friend. And wishing I could enjoy a big hug together and we could talk and pray
awhile in the quiet of this afternoon, as we step into Good Friday and journey
to Easter Sunday together. Together in Spirit, we'll be standing fresh and tall
- completely accepted and known - wrapped within the risen love of Jesus' arms.
Just as we are. I'm remembering the journey our Savior took 2,000 years ago
carrying His cross, down Via Dolorosa, the way of pain, and how He is continue
to walk the journey to carry our burdens on His shoulders for us today. With
much love and affection, Bonnie

Source: Faith Barista

The Sorrows of Death Surrounded Me - I Will Love Thee

by Fr. Mark

The sorrows of death surrounded me,the sorrows of hell encompassed me;and in my affliction I called upon the Lord,and He heard my voice from His holy temple.

The language of the psalms is the heart's cry of all humanity and of every man.
The Psalter is the universal prayerbook: a prayerbook inspired by the Holy
Ghost, entrusted to the children of Israel, presented to the Son of God in the
flesh, sanctified in His Heart and on His lips, transmitted whole and entire to
His Bride the Church, and quickened with her breath and her life-blood, day
after day, in the sacred liturgy.

The Sorrows of Hell

In praying today's prayer (Introit) from Psalm 17, it is the voice of old father Adam and
old mother Eve that echoes in the Church and, through her, reaches the ear of
God: "The sorrows of death surrounded me, the sorrows of hell encompassed me"
(Psalm 17:5). It is the voice of all the just of ages past who, like the holy
prophet Job, endured the loss of things dear to them, suffered every manner of
affliction, and found themselves surrounded on all side by - the psalmist says
it - "the sorrows of death" and "the sorrows of hell". There are hundreds of
thousands of people who are feeling this very thing today. There may be people
very close to us and dear to our hearts, loved ones who are enduring the
relentless assault of the sorrows of death, the sorrows of hell; sensitive souls
scorched by what they experience as the brutality of everyday life.

Praying Out of the Eye of the Storm

The second part of the Introit is no less the prayer of those who are beset by
suffering on all sides: "In my affliction I called upon the Lord, and He heard
my voice from His holy temple" (Psalm 17:7). Prayer made out of the maelstrom of
suffering, out of the eye of the storm, as it were, is rarely measured and
neatly composed. It is a cry of terror. It has about it something savage,
something primal, something that wrenches the heart. This is the very sort of
prayer that God finds irresistible. This is the prayer that reaches Him even in
the silence of His holy temple. And what, then, does the psalmist say? "He heard
my voice from His holy temple" (Psalm 17:7).

When Prayer Seems Impossible

Many people have said to me over the years, "I cannot pray, I don't know how to
prayer, prayer is impossible for me." And I respond, "Can you cry out when you
are injured? Can you weep when you are grieved? Can you call for help when you
are in danger?" If one can do any of things, one can still pray. God is not
remote and hard-hearted; He is not shut up in an inviolable sanctuary where none
but His angels and saints can risk a whispered plea. God is very near, and His
heart is divinely sensitive to our pain. The sanctuary, heavily veiled and
closed off to all but a few select mortals of the tribe of the Aaron, has given
way to the sanctuary of a Heart pierced through by a soldier's lance, a Heart
rent by a bloody gash that is eternally open and that will never close itself to
sinners.

I Will Love Thee, O Lord

Knowing this, how can one not say with the psalmist in today's Introit: Diligam
te Domine, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength: the Lord is my firmament, my
refuge, and my deliverer. There are many souls, whose sufferings are known to
me, to whom I want to say, "Take today's Introit and make it your prayer; repeat
it until it becomes familiar, until it lodges itself in your mind and in you
heart. And then, let us talk again. You will have changed. This I can promise
you."

Happiness Is Not Where You Think It Is

The Collect says that we are justly afflicted for our sins. What does this mean?
Is God an omnipotent and callous torturer who takes satisfaction in meting out
punishments day after day? Sadly, there are people who have this distorted image
of God; the very mention of God causes them to cringe, waiting for a rain of
blows that, they think, must surely be destined for them. Affliction - suffering
- came into the world not as a punishment, but as the necessary coordinate of a
world gone off its axis as a result of man's greed for power,
self-determination, and riches. When God permits us to experience suffering, it
is His way of saying, "Child, happiness is not where you think it is. For you,
happiness does not lie here. You may think yourself capable of charting your own
way to happiness but I, from where I am, see a better way. Trust me." God will,
as the Collect says, mercifully deliver us, but He will do so in His own way, in
His own time, and for reasons that we, from where we stand, cannot begin to
fathom.

Yet Will I Trust Him

God has not destined us for endless suffering. There is no suffering the end of
which God does not have in view. There is no affliction for which He has not a
surpassing consolation in store. There is no calamity for which he has no remedy
prepared. There is no grief that He does not intend to drown in joy. The one
thing God asks us to do is to cling to hope in Him and to say with the prophet
Job, and with Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, "Even though he slay me yet will
I trust Him" (Job 13:15).

The Rock That Is Christ

The Epistle (1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 10:1-5) tells us that all the while the
chosen people were wandering in the desert - forty years of unrest, of hunger,
thirst, illness, scorpions, and temptation - God was with them. Mysteriously, it
was already Christ, the Bread of Life and the Giver of Living Water, who
followed them as they moved from place to place. Saint Paul speaks of the rock
that displaced itself, and from this I would conclude that the rock in its
successive displacements is the sign of a God who never fails to give us the
assurance of His presence, even in the shifting sands of an unfamiliar desert
landscape.

The Gradual (Psalm 9:10-11) and the Tract (Psalm 129:1-4), like the Introit
(Prayer), give us the very substance of our prayer this week. I cannot dwell on
these texts now, but I invite you to return to them, to repeat them, and to hold
them in your heart later today, or tomorrow, or during the week.

God Does Not Think As Men Do

The Gospel today (Matthew 20:1-16) is intended to unsettle us. Jesus would have
us understand that God does not think as men do, nor is He in any way bound to
our limited and near-sighted ways of measuring out what we think right and just.
To his prophet Isaiah God said, "Not mine to think as you think, deal as you
deal; by the full height of heaven above earth, my dealings are higher than your
dealings, my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 59:8-9). How often are we
tempted to cry out to God, "This is not right," and again, "This is not just,"
or even "God, Thou art wrong," and "Thou art not just." The wise man, that is to
say the humble man, learns to say - and sometimes at great personal cost - "I do
not understand what Thou art doing nor why Thou art doing it, but I will trust
Thee. I will trust Thee even when trusting Thee feels to me like utter madness."

My Trust Shall Never Leave Me

Saint Claude La Colombière's life was marked by sufferings and contradictions of
all sorts. Once, he found himself up against a wall. He faced the choice between
trusting God or of altogether losing hope. This is what he wrote:

My God, I believe most firmlythat Thou watchest over all who hope in Thee,and that we can want for nothingwhen we rely upon Thee in all things;therefore I am resolved for the future to have no anxieties,and to cast all my cares upon Thee.

People may deprive me of worldly goods and of honors;sickness may take from me my strengthand the means of serving Thee;I may even lose Thy grace by sin;but my trust shall never leave me.I will preserve it to the last moment of my life,and the powers of hell shall seek in vain to wrestle it from me.

Let others seek happiness in their wealth, in their talents;let them trust to the purity of their lives,the severity of their mortifications,to the number of their good works, the fervor of their prayers;as for me, O my God, in my very confidence lies all my hope.

I know that my confidence cannot exceed Thy bounty,and that I shall never receive less than I have hoped for from Thee.Therefore I hope that Thou wilt sustain me against my evil inclinations;that Thou wilt protect me against the most furious assaults of the evil one,and that Thou wilt cause my weakness to triumph over my most powerful enemies.I hope that Thou wilt never cease to love me,and that I shall love Thee unceasingly.

The Light of His Face

The man who trusts God in this way will understand why the Church gives us
today's Communion Antiphon in such marked contrast with the Introit that opened
the Mass: "Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant, and save me in Thy mercy:
let me not be confounded, O Lord, for I have called upon Thee" (Psalm 30:17-18).
If, from our side, when all is darkness, we give the last word to trust, from
God's side, the last word will be one of mercy, and with it will come the light
of His Face.

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